Some of the
Northern journals profess to look with more toleration upon certain Southern States than others.--They do not place
Virginia and
North Carolina in the same category with the
Gulf States.
They are pleased to remark that these States were among the last that came into the contest, and that
Virginia had often interposed her influence under the old Government to prevent collisions like the present.
They single out
South Carolina as the ring leader of this riot — an old offender, who had long been seeking to make mischief in the happy family.
We shall not stop to show that the original disunion State of the old Confederacy was
Massachusetts.
She was in favor of disunion so long ago as the last war. Her Legislature passed secession resolutions as late as the annexation of
Texas.
It was in
Massachusetts, long before Southern Secession, that the compact of the
Union was openly declared "a compact with Hell." Practical nullification existed in
New England long before Southern Secession.
The restoration of the
Union is the last thing that, even now,
New England desires.
It spits upon the idea of any renewal of that alliance.
It deprecates, above all other evils, a return to the old order of things.
It will not so much as hear of receiving the
South on the old terms.
South Carolina then ought to be the chief object of
New England love and affection, instead of denunciation and hate.
We, too, on our part, can make a discrimination among our enemies.
Badly as the
North has behaved in general, we recognize, without difficulty, the motive influence of the war in
New England Puritanism.
It was the ascendancy of its turbulent and ferocious spirit in the councils of the
United States which precipitated this war, and which has imparted to it its peculiar horrors.
The motives of the
Middle States and the
Western are an entirely different kind of humanity.
Even the
Masonic Lodges of the
South are not recognized by the same order in
New England.
A
New England General in the
South lately destroyed Masonic property and refused to make any reparation.
His superior officer, a Western
Mason, compelled him to do so. The Middle States and the
West would hail with joy reconstruction.
New England demands subjugation.--Nay more, its clergy clamor for extermination.
The Boston
Recorder, a leading religious paper, edited by clergymen, and enjoying a large circulation, alludes to the danger to which the "loyal" North is exposed "from selfish desires for peace" and from being "too ready to take the Divine prerogative of forgiveness into our own hands, as if we were more merciful than God, and pardon those dreadful offenders whom the
Lord, in mercy to posterity, has delivered to us to destroy." The Recorder proceeds to quote the example of
Saul, who was reproved by the people for not utterly exterminating the wicked
Amalekite, including the women and children.
This the
Recorder regards as a case in point, illustrating the dreadful iniquity of permitting any human being in the
South to live and breathe.
"This comes," exclaims the New York correspondent of the London
Times, "from the modern
Athens —— from the 'Hub of the Universe'--from the city adorned by the presence, and rendered illustrious by the intelligence, of
Longfellow and
Lowell, of
Agassiz and
Holmes, of
Whittier and
Whipple.
This is from
Boston, in the year of grace eighteen hundred and sixty-four; and it was written, probably, by a gentleman attired in a modern-cut coat and pantaloons and an orthodox white cravat — a gentleman who reads the
Atlantic Monthly, who goes too near the big organ, who attends meetings at the
Fremont Temple, who is a member, perchance, both of the Sanitary and the Christian Commission, who walks on the Common, who 'orates' at
Bunker Hill on Independence Day, who has friends in Beacon street, who has dined at the
Revere or the
Parker House — and not by a sour
Puritan with a steeple crowned hat, and hair closely cropped round his ears, a camlet cloak and
Geneva bands."
No! not in a steeple crowned hat, etc., but the same animal notwithstanding.--The wolf, dressed in sheep's clothing, or in the raiment of Little Red Riding
Hood's grandmother, is none the less a wolf.
This horrible perversion and distortion of the Scripture, to justify the most abominable crimes, was always characteristic of Puritans.
When you tell them that the
Bible sanctions slavery, they scornfully reply,--falsely, of course,--that this was only under the Old Dispensation, adapted to the infamy of a barbarous nation, but that the Gospel has introduced a new law,--"Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." But when they want a pretext for the indulgence of the most vindictive and ferocious passions, they arrogate to themselves the attributes of the God of Justice, punishing, under the Old Dispensation, all indulgence to idolaters and criminals, and conveniently forget the "Do unto others," etc., of the Gospel — that Gospel which proclaims,--"A new commandment, I give unto you, that ye love one another."